Adding in Touchpoints and Making Feedback Count

Adding in Touchpoints

Now that we've covered the essentials of structuring and building your curriculum, it's time to talk about interactivity. Not the sort of interactivity where a learner interacts with the content or the system, but the sort where they interact with people, which is where we at Prosell believe makes all the difference.

You will notice that "The Performance Hub" is referred to throughout, and this is a term that is used to describe the roles supporting the learner, e.g. manager/trainer/mentor.

"Touchpoints" are activities that enable feedback and encourage interaction between learners and the people in their Performance Hub. This can primarily be achieved through the approval mechanism but do also try to get participants commenting on activities as this can really bring your programs alive. Remember that feedback can be multi-directional, i.e. not just, for example, the traditional scenario where a manager coaches or challenges a direct report (or doesn't, in fact!). 

It’s super-important to include all and only the touchpoints you need in your learning curriculum. Too few and you miss the benefits of interactivity and the learning may not be properly applied; too many and you risk swamping your Performance Hub with too much stuff to do - remember you want quality feedback, not path-of-least-resistance "That was great" when quite possibly it wasn't! You need to be aware of the needs and situation of the people in your Performance Hub just as much as your learners. Try to find a happy balance.

Making Feedback Count

With the careful use of approvals and the contribution of the people in the Performance Hub, you can help your people identify what they’ve learned and where any gaps exist, how they feel about it, how to apply it best, and so on. This will allow the learner to catch any misunderstandings or gaps in their learning, early. Try to ensure that these touchpoints are focused and target the learning objectives you want your learner to achieve.

Contrast the following exchange:

• A: How do you think that went?
• B: Great, thanks
• A: Good for you. Well done

in which a (very) open question is used, no coaching or challenging happens and no value is added, with:

• A: Did you get your sales opening questions exactly right?
• B: Most of them. I established the facts well, I think, but I lost it when I attempted to find out about the client's points of pain.
• A: What happened exactly? etc...­­

which looks a lot more promising. Feedback is an essential part of learning but it is only effective if it is specific enough for a learner to recognise what they did well, where they need to improve and how to go about that improvement. Encourage your Performance Hub colleagues to balance positive and developmental feedback ­­so that the learner gets a balanced view of how they are progressing.

When designing feedback, or the advice you give your people in the Performance Hub, keep this model in mind:

Situation > Behaviour > Impact

1. Situation - What did you see/hear? Example: "When you greeted the customer…"
2. Behaviour - What did you do? Example: "You didn’t make any eye contact…"
3. Impact - How did that affect the person you were communicating with? Example: "And that meant the customer wasn’t sure whether you were ready to speak to them"

This provides objective feedback as it focuses on what was observed, rather than subjective opinions. It also ensures there’s enough depth to the feedback to allow the learner to know what to work on in order to improve their performance.